


when the cherry blossoms fade

by soyeol



Category: DIA (Band), I.O.I (Band)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Romance, Winter, f/f - Freeform, kpop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 12:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8751754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soyeol/pseuds/soyeol
Summary: During a snowless winter, you fall in love





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired on IOI’s Chaeyeon

If there were two constants in my life, one would be the pouring rain, falling hard over me every day, and the other would be her.  
I didn’t know her name, but I could feel her like a shadow. That anonymous walker passing by me on the library, on the stairs, on the rush of the streets.  
That winter was especially cold. The trees were rough and naked, the wind merciless, the autumn colors were vanishing into the white season. Nobody looked at strangers in the eyes on the streets. Everybody walked fast, head down, trying to avoid the cold, trying to get somewhere warm.  
I was used to step into puddles and get my feet wet through the thin material of my shoes. I was also used to forget my umbrella on the door and never wearing enough layers of clothing. It’s not that the cold did not affect me like the others; it’s just that I liked to feel the seasons. My friends would wear their warmest beanies, scarfs and gloves. I did have some of those, but they were on the bottom of my closet, waiting for a greater cold. The kind of cold that would ice my bones and freeze my tears over my cheeks.  
Ever since I was a little kid I had this fantasy of a snowy winter. I would picture myself making angels on the pavement, building snowmen, throwing snow balls to my friends. A winter dream that I would never experience. It was never cold enough for the snow to maintain itself whole over the ground.  
But oh, every winter I would look at the sky, longing for that white dream. Waiting for the isolation of my heart, which was always feeling like an outsider on my own chest.  
I don’t know when I began to notice her presence on my life. Some times when I think about those times I like to believe that I felt her by my side from the very first time that our paths crossed.  
She was always carrying a yellow umbrella. She was always wearing yellow water boots as well. Her long brown hair was constantly fighting a war against the wind, which messed with it, making it come to life. The way in which she would try again and again to fix her hair behind her ear was the theme of most of my poems.  
I think that the very first time that she crossed my way was while waiting on the traffic light that was always red when I was late to class. My eyes stopped on her because of the bright yellow that stood out on that grey evening. She was looking at her boots like a shy kid and I held my breath. She did not look up at any moment but I could not fill my lungs again until I had already crossed the street, when she was long gone. Then I realized that I had been choking.  
When we meet each other on the middle of the crosswalk my briefcase hit her arm hard enough to make a bruise. When I recall I tell to myself that it was an accident, and now I don’t know if it actually was or if I’m such a good liar that I’m beginning to believe my own lies.  
She did not lift her head even then. She only touched her arm slightly with her fingertips. And even if I was dying of embarrassment I let out a nervous smile. Because even if it had been only for a second, she had felt me.  
And so we met on the same crossway every day at 16:05. Two bullets fired in opposite directions, destined to cross each other forever without ever getting to crush.  
I would try to picture her in my daydreams. With my eyes closed I could see her yellow umbrella and her yellow boots, her long brown hair all messy over hair face, her shy smile and her small nose, but I could never complete the image, I could never make it feel real. It was because I could never recreate her eyes. Her eyes were a mystery to me. Always shy, always gentle, always looking down.  
I would play with that ambiguity. I would put bright green eyes on her, sometimes sea blue, sometimes warm brown. And as I created her gaze I also began to create her as a whole and all mine.  
Her name was Daisy or so was the name that I gave to her. She was like a yellow daisy flower to me, and so I named her Daisy. She would smell sweeter than the flowers and she would be twice as cheerful. I already knew that she was twice as beautiful.  
When I got home every evening after seeing her waiting on the other side of the crossroad I liked to imagine where she would be going.  
She was voluntary on the public library. She would read fairy tales to the kids and she would enjoy looking for the right place of each book on the shelf. She would read haphazard paragraphs of random books that she picked from the counter with her eyes closed, letting herself be guided only by her instinct and her touch. That way she would find hidden jewels that she would memorize to write later on her diary.  
Her diary would be filled with book fragments and song lyrics. She would use dry flowers as bookmarks and she would never go anywhere without it.  
She would have trouble falling asleep and she would like to count the stars of the constellations that she saw on the inside of her eyelids.  
She smiled a lot and she blushed when somebody said something beautiful about her.  
Sometimes I complimented her on my dreams and I imagined her blush and look down. I did this that much that I stopped imagining her and I began to actually see her easily when I closed my eyes.  
It felt so real to me that I began to think that I actually knew her, but she was not the character that I created on my fantasies; it would take me years to realize that.  
The gentle crossing paths on the crossway would be my daily rush. Adrenaline would infire my body every time I saw her waiting on the other side. It was just like a metaphor. Despite the fact that there was nothing poetic in my one sided love.  
Picturing her on my dreams would not be enough. It was enough for a time, but as the season passed I began to long for something else. A real contact. The simple thought of an actual interaction pulled my heart inside out. Every evening she would cross my way and every evening I would say to myself that that would be the day, the day in which I would be brave enough to talk to her. But every single time passed in the same way, nothing ever happened. It was as if she only existed on my fingertips. Close enough to feel her, never being able to touch her.  
One fine day I would not go at 16:05 to the crossway, I would take the trolley car to the center, I can't remember why. I remember the cold, a little bit harder than usually, I remember to put it down to not seeing her that day. My soul felt anxious and I could not settle it down, I didn't want to anyway; I like to feel the emotions.  
I sat alone on the middle of the trolley car, looking through the window in front of me. I had my earphones on, I even remember the song, “Could it be another chance” by The Samples. I used to listen to that song all the time back then.  
Could it be another chance to come and rearrange, why can't you just feel that way I do?  
I was a coward. I could not find the strength to make a real change, but I felt every single word of the song anyway.  
I kept looking through the window, thinking about her. I was thinking about her so hard that I could picture her once again in front of my eyes. Only a couple seconds after sensing her I realized that I was not imagining her, I was actually seeing her silhouette on the glass.  
I turned around immediately. There she was, sitting against the window, only a couple seats behind me. She was wearing her yellow boots. She was looking down.  
Suddenly my heart felt like jumping out of my chest, I wanted to rip it, I could not stand it anymore. I looked at her for what it felt like an eternity in which everything was pure and perfect. An eternity in which only we existed, her and I, in an empty trolley car.  
All of me burnt out of love for her. Daisy. My Daisy. Always gentle, always caring, always meaningful.  
Always too far away for me to reach.  
The short distance between us felt like a load on my shoulders. A load so heavy that won't let me move. I wanted to erase that distance. I wanted to sit next to her and put her hair behind her ears. I wanted to sit next to her and caress her pale hands. I wanted to sit next to her and lay my head on her shoulder.  
I was stuck in a reality that felt so true to me and yet was so distant and unknown to her.  
I observed her from that safe distance all the way to the center. She did not look up at any moment.  
When she stood up to get out of the bus I follower her with my eyes. My heart pounding on my chest. She was leaving again. I was about to lose her again, another possible future lost in a matter of seconds. Another life in which I would not hold her hand.  
And so she got off.  
I remained sitting there, hopeless, for who knows how long. It was not until the trolley car stopped death on its tracks that I realized that I had missed my bus stop long ago.  
I got out of the car and I began walking my way back home. I could not recall why I wanted to go to the center but that was not important anymore.  
I walked for hours on the full streets, having to move away to avoid crushing against the other pedestrians. I walked until it was dark, the night covering me like a blanket, trying to ease away my broken heart.  
That night I felt a cold that soaked through my bare bones. I remember thinking that not even the warmest coat of the world could keep me safe from the merciless weather.  
The next day when I rushed to the crossway at 16:05 I felt my heart fall. She was not there. When I got home I tried to rewrite my notes, but I could not get rid of the freezing cold that had slipped deep within my soul.  
She would not be at the other side of the crossway the next day nor the other.  
She would not cross my way for many weeks straight.  
I was destroyed.  
My mind worked at the speed of the light, trying to remember everything about that evening on the trolley car, when I last saw her. Was she carrying a suitcase? Did she get off on the bus station? The more that I thought about it, the less that I was able to remember clearly.  
The days passed by, none of them leaving a strong impression on me.  
At first I swear that I would see her everywhere, Daisy, sitting on a bench, Daisy, behind a libraries shelf, Daisy, going up the stairs when I was going down.  
I would rush to catch her every single time, but it was never her. It was some girl that at the end didn’t even look like her. Nobody could look like her. Nobody could be that perfect and yet that ephemeral.  
I thought that I would lose my mind, or that my heart would explode on my chest, unable to hold all the pain. Is it possible to be in love with someone that you don’t even know?  
Yes, it is, trust me, I’m telling you stories.  
I fell in love with the idea of her. A pure, kind hearted human being, who would always have a smile on and who would never have a bad thought about other person, nor even for a second.  
Was I in love with her? Probably not. The person that I fell in love with did not exist, she only wore her face. But oh, it would take me so long to realize.  
When she disappeared from my life I began feeling the greater winter. I covered myself with beanies and scarfs and gloves to /inefficiently/ try to fight the greater cold for which I had been saving myself my entire life, and yet I was not prepared when it arrived.  
It was not at all like in my childhood dreams. It was evil and it feed of my sadness. It would be rougher when I was at my best and not much less rough when I was at my worst. Pouring rain, icy wind, dark clouds, wet clothes, but no snow at sight. Life never happens as one thinks that it should.  
Now, I still have two constants in my life, one is the pouring rain, and the other the memory of her, my gentle winter dream, who nourished on my hope. The longing of my heart being, at last, isolated from the mundane life. Being catapulted to another world, where everything was more exciting. A world much prettier than the one I live in. I would be in love.  
But I have always known that falling in love is easier with the eyes closed and the mind wide open.  
After all these years sometimes I find myself wondering what would have happened if I ever spoke to her. My mind goes round the bent at the single thought of a hello, or just the minimum eye contact. After all these years I still don’t know the color of her eyes.  
As soon as these thoughts come to my mind I can’t stop them from travelling far away, to multiple realities in which we would be together.  
For me, these moments are not a waste of time. I don’t think that my daily life is more real than any of the others. Who decides which of my many lives is the real one and which are invented?  
I don’t know.  
The only thing that I know, is that there is a real connection between all my realities.  
It began unexpectedly an evening, a few weeks after Daisy disappeared from my life. I was sitting in the trolley car, half sleep, when it got into a tunnel. The darkness of the road was complete, I couldn’t see even the tip of my nose. Then, a white light blinded my eyes.  
I was out of the tunnel, and it was snowing.  
The snowflakes were falling gracefully over the car, all of them different, all of them unique in their shape.  
For the first time since Daisy disappeared, I smiled. My winter fantasy, here it was. I looked at my watch, it was 16:05. And the day, March 21th.  
And so it began, the spring of my life.


End file.
